BRIDE HARD: 1 ½ STARS. “it tries hard to amuse. Perhaps too hard.”
SYNOPSIS: In “Bride Hard,” a new spy comedy starring Rebel Wilson and now playing in theatres, a bridesmaid must call on her secret agent training when a team of mercenaries invades her best friend’s wedding and takes the wedding party hostage.
CAST: Anna Camp. Rebel Wilson, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Anna Chlumsky, Gigi Zumbado, Stephen Dorff and Justin Hartley. Directed by Simon West.
REVIEW: A mix of comedy and action, “Bride Hard” aims to be a blend of “Bridesmaids” and “The Spy Who Dumped Me,” but isn’t funny or action-packed enough to earn a recommendation.
It’s familiar territory. Melissa McCarthy and Jason Statham’s “Spy” did it first, and did it better, generating genuine laughs while delivering kick ass action. In “Bride Hard,” “Con Air” director Simon West delivers neither.
As secret agent and maid of honor, Rebel Wilson brings her trademarked physical humor and way with a line—”I don’t think you understand the stress headache a high ponytail can give you,” she tells bad guy Kurt (Stephen Dorff)—but her work, so effortless in movies like “Pitch Perfect,” “Grimsby” and “Bridesmaid,” falls flat here.
The silly situation does her no favors.
There isn’t a moment in the set-up or the main action that feels authentic. I get that it’s a comedy, but a touch of realism in the heist section would have upped the stakes and made me care about the characters. Despite the presence of guns and bad attitudes, there’s no essence of danger. It’s as if the wedding guests are annoyed by a clumsy cater waiter who spilled a glass of champagne, not a team of desperadoes.
If any of this rang true, the heroic/absurd rescue by bridesmaid/secret agent Sam (Wilson) might have found its way to the funny. As it is, the film’s decision to give everyone a quirky edge becomes old very quickly. If everything is quirky, then nothing is quirky.
In an effort to make you laugh “Bride Hard” has highly trained assassins thwarted by nunchuck curling irons and bad guys yelling, “She’s using the chocolate fountain for cover!”
No doubt, it tries hard to amuse. Perhaps too hard.
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